Neerja Bhanot, 22, Senior Purser of Pan Am Flight 73, Stayed Aboard to Help Passengers Out at Karachi on 5 September 1986 and Became the First Woman to Receive the Ashoka Chakra

Neerja Bhanot was 22 and the senior purser, the lead of the cabin crew, on Pan Am Flight 73 when four gunmen took the Boeing 747 on the ground at Karachi on 5 September 1986. The US Justice Department’s account of the day says she helped warn the cockpit crew, made announcements to the passengers for about 16 hours as the hijackers allowed, and ran to an emergency door when the lights went out. She activated the escape chute and stayed aboard to get others off, and she was shot in the final assault. India awarded her the Ashoka Chakra in 1987, and the Pan Am Historical Foundation describes her as the first woman to receive it.

A crew in its first year with Pan Am

Bhanot was born in Chandigarh on 7 September 1963 to Harish Bhanot, a journalist, and Rama Bhanot. The Tribune records that the family later moved to Bombay (now Mumbai), where she studied at Bombay Scottish School and St. Xavier’s College. The Justice Department’s sentencing narrative adds that she worked as a model, had two older brothers and had been with Pan Am for about ten months.

Pan Am had trained her group in Miami in late 1985. The department says they were the airline’s first flight attendants from a country other than the United States. On Flight 73 all 13 attendants in its count were Indian citizens in their early twenties, none with a year of service. The Pan Am Museum Foundation adds that they had recently swapped the silver wings of probationers for gold, and that this was their first trip as full flight attendants without a supervisor on board. Bhanot’s welcome announcement is recorded there: “On behalf of the entire Pan Am crew, it’s a pleasure to welcome you on board Pan Am flight 73 to Karachi.”

The flight ran from Bombay to Karachi, Frankfurt and New York. The Justice Department puts the number aboard at about 379, including about 78 US citizens.

Four men in security uniforms, and a code on the intercom

At about 6:00 a.m. local time, according to the department’s press release, the gunmen drove a van modified to look like an airport security vehicle through the Karachi checkpoint, were not challenged, and stormed the boarding stairs. They belonged to the Abu Nidal Organization, a group the US government lists as a terrorist organization, and they wanted the aircraft flown to Larnaca in Cyprus to free Palestinian prisoners held there.

Some of the flight attendants used the intercom to send the hijack code to the cockpit. The pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer left through a cockpit hatch before the hijackers reached the flight deck, which the department says effectively grounded the aircraft. The Pan Am Museum Foundation records the airline’s vice chairman describing the exit as long-established procedure.

Accounts differ on who made the call. The sentencing narrative says Bhanot helped to warn the crew. The Tribune in 1999 wrote that she rushed toward the cockpit and shouted the code, and that another attendant relayed it. The BBC’s 2016 interviews with six crew members name flight attendant Sherene Pavan as the person who pressed the emergency number and passed on the code. Sunshine Vesuwala told the BBC she was relieved to find the cockpit empty, because the crew were safer on the ground than in the air.

Sixteen hours, and the American passports

The narrative says Bhanot was assigned to the first-class cabin and was responsible for passing the hijackers’ permitted announcements to the passengers. The BBC’s interviews have her handing out water while colleague Dilip Bidichandani took round sandwiches.

During the siege the hijackers ordered the attendants to collect passports so they could pick out Americans. The Justice Department’s press release says the attendants, at risk to their own lives, avoided collecting some US passports and hid others. The BBC names Vesuwala and Madhvi Bahuguna among those who did it, tucking the remaining American passports under seats or into their clothing. At the sentencing hearing in May 2004, Bhanot’s brother Aneesh told the court that Neerja and all the other attendants hid the American passports. Snopes concludes that she played a major part but was not the only attendant doing so.

The lead hijacker then walked the cabin asking about nationalities and singled out Rajesh Kumar, a 29-year-old recently naturalised US citizen. At about 10:00 a.m. he shot Kumar and pushed him out of the door, and the Justice Department says Kumar died later at a Karachi hospital.

The lights go out

As evening came the aircraft’s power began to fail. The department’s press release says the hijackers herded passengers and crew into the middle of the cabin, and when the lights went out they opened fire and threw grenades. Time counted at least 17 of the people aboard dead by a few minutes before 10 p.m. that Friday.

The sentencing narrative says that when the lights went out Bhanot ran for the emergency door and activated the inflatable chute. She and other attendants and passengers forced open two exits in the economy section, it adds, and she stayed on board to help others when she could have left among the first. She was shot in the final assault. The BBC’s account, from colleagues who found her, says she had been hit in the hip, was bleeding heavily and was conscious; Vesuwala and Bidichandani carried her to the slide and sent her down first. Viraf Daroga, Pan Am’s director for Pakistan, told the court she was brought down by her colleagues and died in hospital in the arms of one of his staff.

Her coffin reached Bombay on 7 September 1986, her 23rd birthday. Official counts of the dead differ slightly: the Justice Department’s 2004 release says at least 21, its victim-witness page says 20, and the BBC gives 22, with roughly 100 to 150 injured. The Justice Department’s 2006 award citation says the attendants’ combined efforts most likely saved more than 350 people.

Where the accounts differ

The Pan Am Historical Foundation says Bhanot died shielding three children from bullets. Her brother told the court she gave her life, “as we are told,” while shielding three small children. The Pan Am Museum Foundation records that witnesses told of seeing her shot while shielding children and leading them to the slide. The sentencing narrative describes her death without mentioning children, and Snopes rates the claim a mixture because the recollections vary.

The crews’ own telling shares the credit. The narrative says passengers and other attendants helped force the exits open, the Justice Department’s award citation names 16 attendants and Daroga together, and the six crew members the BBC interviewed said that no single person was the hero that day. Duration is counted two ways as well: the Justice Department and the Pan Am Museum Foundation say about 16 hours, while the Pan Am Historical Foundation and The Tribune say 17. The number of attendants varies too, from 13 in the sentencing narrative to 16 in the award citation.

What happened to the hijackers

A Pakistani special court sentenced four hijackers and an accomplice to death in July 1988, and the sentences were later commuted to life, the Pan Am Museum Foundation records. The lead hijacker, Zaid Hassan Abd Latif Safarini, was released in Pakistan in 2001 after about 15 years and arrested by US agents in late September that year. He pleaded guilty to all 95 counts in December 2003 and was sentenced in Washington in May 2004 to 160 years.

The State Department’s Rewards for Justice programme says four of the men convicted in Pakistan were reportedly released in January 2008. As of 5 November 2026 its page offers up to $5 million for information on each. The BBC reports that the release went ahead against the wishes of India and the United States.

The Ashoka Chakra and what followed

The Ashoka Chakra was instituted in 1950 as the Ashoka Chakra, Class 1, and renamed in 1967. Bharat Rakshak describes it as India’s highest award for gallantry away from the battlefield, or not in the face of the enemy. Its wartime counterpart is the Param Vir Chakra. The Pan Am Historical Foundation and The Tribune (2 October 2026) date Bhanot’s award to 1987. The Tribune’s 1999 feature gives the citation as: “Her loyalties to the passengers of the aircraft in distress will forever be a lasting tribute to the finest qualities of the human spirit.” ThePrint reproduces the same words. The Pan Am Historical Foundation and ThePrint also call her the youngest recipient. Rakesh Sharma, whose award the article on India’s first astronaut dates to January 1985, and Assistant Sub-Inspector Tukaram Omble, whose 26/11 action brought him the decoration, hold the same award.

Other honours followed. The Tribune’s 1999 feature lists the Flight Safety Foundation’s heroism award and the Medal of Heroism of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and a posthumous honour from Pakistan that it calls the Tamgha-e-Insaniyat. On 8 October 2004 the Vice-President, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, released commemorative stamps for her and for Randhir Prasad Verma, another Ashoka Chakra recipient. In 2006 the US Justice Department gave its Special Courage Award to the Flight 73 attendants, Bhanot among them, and to Pan Am’s director for Pakistan, Viraf Daroga.

Her parents set up the Neerja Bhanot Pan Am Trust. The Tribune gave its starting fund in 1999 as Rs 36.50 lakh (Rs 3.65 million) and described two annual awards of Rs 1.5 lakh each, one for an airline crew member anywhere who acts beyond the call of duty and one for an Indian woman who has overcome social injustice and helped others. A Hindi film, “Neerja”, directed by Ram Madhvani and starring Sonam Kapoor, followed in 2016 and won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, ThePrint reports.

On 4 September 2026, before the 40th anniversary, the Pan Am Museum Foundation published a tribute that thanks the Flight 73 attendants for helping passengers through the siege and out of the aircraft.